Ripping cd's

[Confused]

Lots of stuff on here about how to get all those 1's an 0's from a device to a Devialet, bit perfect, via very nice cables. But how to get them onto your hard drive in the first place?

I tend to buy cd's an rip them on my PC. My very neat "all in one" PC, has what I believe is possibly the worlds worse cd transport. Check the part number, it is a Samsung item that can be bought retail for £12, or about the price of one single cd......

My old cd player has a transport that is built like a modest house, but I am ripping with my £12 special plastic drive. I figure that investing in a better (external) drive would be worth while? (one dealer I spoke to insists that Panasonic drives are best for PC's). Also, I tend to rip using iTunes. Devialet themselves state on their website that this is as good as anything. Is this true? Rip with a Naim unitiserve or similar, then that's £2k please. Worth the money? I am thinking that I need to upgrade my PC with a better cd transport, and I know of many options for software for ripping cd's.

Any ideas out there?

[ZincAlloy]

Lots of stuff on here about how to get all those 1's an 0's from a device to a Devialet, bit perfect, via very nice cables. But how to get them onto your hard drive in the first place?

I tend to buy cd's an rip them on my PC. My very neat "all in one" PC, has what I believe is possibly the worlds worse cd transport. Check the part number, it is a Samsung item that can be bought retail for £12, or about the price of one single cd......

My old cd player has a transport that is built like a modest house, but I am ripping with my £12 special plastic drive. I figure that investing in a better (external) drive would be worth while? (one dealer I spoke to insists that Panasonic drives are best for PC's). Also, I tend to rip using iTunes. Devialet themselves state on their website that this is as good as anything. Is this true? Rip with a Naim unitiserve or similar, then that's £2k please. Worth the money? I am thinking that I need to upgrade my PC with a better cd transport, and I know of many options for software for ripping cd's.

Any ideas out there?

Hi - I use MediaMonkey on a PC for ripping. It supports AccurateRip, which checks the result of each rip against an online database to ensure that it's been ripped correctly. Assuming that it has, you won't need to upgrade your CD drive on your PC. There's a free trial version available, so you can check the out. I found iTunes screwed up my library, and the way it handles Compilations and Album Art laughable. I also hear good things about dbpoweramp, but have never used it. Key thing - make sure whatever you use supports AccurateRip.

ATB, Ken

[Confused]

@ZincAlloy. AccurateRip sounds interesting, a good tip. Thanks! I must investigate further, many questions forming in my brain, like who checks their data base is correct? Fascinating stuff, I'll check it out!

[f1eng]

I have tried quite a few but prefer iTunes on a Mac, to my surprise given what is written on the 'net!
I rip to ALAC with the "use error correction..." option chosen in the import settings.
I find the most tedious bit is correcting or modifying the tags downloaded from the internet which are rarely complete and rarely produce easily found logically located albums in a big collection.
Usually fine for pop music but fairly useless for classical.

Most of the rips I have I did between 2001 and 2007 before iTunes got inconvenient to use.
I have JRiver which has a nice interface, and DBPoweramp, which does (astonishingly slow) accurate rips on a PC but I prefer not having my PC connected to the internet, so I don't use either any more.

[Confused]

@f1eng - I too have been using iTunes / ALAC / error correction for many years. Obviously it is impossible to say if there is a different method of ripping out there that would be better, but I have never had any reason to suspect there is anything at all substandard with how iTunes performs. The tagging issue you mention has never been a problem for me, but I have to say that over the years, as iTunes has been progressively updated again and again, it is just slowly getting worse and worse in so many ways....

[ZincAlloy]

@f1eng - I too have been using iTunes / ALAC / error correction for many years. Obviously it is impossible to say if there is a different method of ripping out there that would be better, but I have never had any reason to suspect there is anything at all substandard with how iTunes performs. The tagging issue you mention has never been a problem for me, but I have to say that over the years, as iTunes has been progressively updated again and again, it is just slowly getting worse and worse in so many ways....

So that it's clear. I'm not suggesting that iTunes creates rips that are substandard, sonically. I just find, like you, that it's got worse and worse over the years. What I like about MediaMonkey is that it gives me more control over how I tag and manage my library. Re:AccurateRip, I think this is a third party database which seems fairly up-to-date. There are a few occasions when I've ripped a CD and it hasn't been found in the database. Note that I'm talking about rock music here; if you're a classical fan, there may be a better alternative.

ATB, Ken

[Confused]

@ZincAlloy - I have just taken a quick look at AccurateRip, I note that they actually offer a small selection of various software downloads Following the links I find "Exact Audio Copy", which seams to click through to "Express Rip" or EAC downloads, depending on what you click. I presume you are using the EAC / "Exact Audio Copy" software that comes up?

[ZincAlloy]

@ZincAlloy - I have just taken a quick look at AccurateRip, I note that they actually offer a small selection of various software downloads Following the links I find "Exact Audio Copy", which seams to click through to "Express Rip" or EAC downloads, depending on what you click. I presume you are using the EAC / "Exact Audio Copy" software that comes up?

Hi - I think EAC is for Mac only, or at least it was the last time I checked. I don't use AccurateRip as a "standalone" tool. It is embedded into MediaMonkey, and the others on the EAC website. So, I'm guessing that MediaMonkey and others licence AccurateRip as part of their solution. Hopefully this makes sense?

ATB, Ken

[jjo]

EAC is actually Windows only. dbPoweramp used to be windows only, but nowadays there seems to be a beta for Mac also.

[PhilP]

I too find iTunes rather annoying and so use XLD for ripping CDs. I have previously ripped all my music to zero compression FLAC and stored it on a NAS feeding my Naim streamer. I've recently batch converted a couple of hundred albums from FLAC To AIFF using XLD and loade them into iTunes so I could try using the iMac as a source for my 200. Everything including All tags seems fine.

I use Metadatics to edit tags and find that works very well.